Six months is not quite forever
by Pagan Ianthe
Summary: Starting with the final farewell between Logan and Veronica in the film, this skips through their 180 days apart and their first day back together.


Title: Six months is not quite forever  
Spoilers: The film, sort of  
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, they are the property of Rob Thomas, Warner Brothers etc etc…any characters you don't recognise are the only ones that I created.  
Rating: Mature  
Word count: 4,050  
Summary: Starting with the final farewell between Logan and Veronica in the film, this skips through their 180 days apart and their first day back together.  
Author Notes: This is the first fanfic I have written in nearly 10 years, I haven't actually written much in all that time (unless you count essay upon essay about the treachery of women in Shakespeare and the dysfunctional relationships between men and their mothers in other literary masterpieces)…Enjoy

~*~

Two weeks had never felt as short as they did this morning. When I woke up he was already up and dressed, standing by the window, the dawn sunlight reflecting off the gold braid on his hat. As much as I don't want to admit it; as much as I wanted to strip him out of the uniform that is about to take him away from me, I have to say that it suits him. I reach up and brush my fingers across his cheek, and he smiles. "I don't want you to go."

He leaned into my touch, half-smiling, and pressed a light kiss to my palm. "Listen, it's 180 days, Veronica. What's 180 days to us?" He must realise that 180 days can feel like forever when you aren't with the person who turns your stomach inside out and your life upside down. "Our story's epic; spanning years, continents…"

I can't help but continue this well-worn description of our relationship, Buttercup and Wesley we are not. "Lives ruined, bloodshed."

"Yeah." Wrapping his arms around me he pulled me closer; his chin resting on the top of my head. There was something comforting about being held like this; it made me feel protected, cherished.

"Come back to me." My voice is barely a whisper against his jacket as I breathe in the smell that is uniquely him; expensive cologne, sweat, and dry cleaning detergent.

"Always," placing one hand beneath my chin he raised my face to his and brushed his nose against mine, an Eskimo kiss.

It's a good job I am well practiced at keeping busy; Logan's letters are short and infrequent but they are enough of a reminder that he cares about me, is thinking about me. With Mac's help I am struggling to get Mars Investigations back off the ground; for now we are getting by on following unfaithful spouses and chasing down bail jumpers. Dad's in his element; having won the last election for Sheriff by a landslide he has never been more in demand. The reign of the Lamb brothers has definitely ended; they aren't holding the less wealthy hostage any longer, we saw to that.

"I'll see you tomorrow, V," Mac yells to me from the outer office just before I hear the click of the front door close. Like me she is working long hours, but unlike me she knows when to call a halt to the day. I'm just going to sort through this last box of stuff Piz sent me from our New York apartment and then I am going to head home, I never realised that I had managed to accumulate so much stuff!

Dad's already home when I get back to the house. His jacket is flung over the back of one of the dining chairs and I can hear him singing in the kitchen. "Dad, I'm back," I shout as I walk through the house. The last thing I want to do is surprise him too much, last time I did that I ended up with a gun in my face; definitely not something I want to repeat. "Spaghetti and meatballs?" I ask as I lean over the bubbling pot on the stove, the scent of basil and oregano stirring the hunger pangs I had pushing down since lunch.

"Your favourite," he teases, kissing me on the cheek before turning his attention back to the bubbling tomato and herb sauce. "Not out tonight?" he asks, sounding a little bit too eager to get rid of me.

"Were you planning on eating all of this yourself?" I look at the dining table, set for two; wine glasses, the best cutlery and clean white plates…oh! "Have you got a date? Do you want me to leave?" Now, Dad has never been a lothario, in fact he's anything but. Since mom left he's been pretty single, but that doesn't mean that he isn't in demand; every woman loves a man in uniform, and combine that uniform with a bit of power and you have a definite hottie, but urgh, my dad and dating?

I can see that I have put him on the spot; he is trying to look anywhere but at me, and is that a bit of a flush I detect on his cheeks? "I can always head over to see Wallace, he's been on about trying this new place for a few weeks now." That's a bit of a lie, Wallace is out tonight with the new guidance counsellor at school, but I am an independent woman, I can go out on my own.

"Would you?" He doesn't have to sound so eager, does he? He turns the heat under the sauce down to low and then ushers me from the kitchen, "go out, have a good time. Tell Wallace I said hi!"

I have no idea what exactly I am going to do for the next few hours while dad is 'entertaining' so I head to a diner just outside the town, order a plate of fries and a milkshake and sit at a window table.

I am 27 years old, in a sort of relationship with my high school boyfriend and yet it's date night and I am on my own sitting at a window table in the local diner picking at a plate of chilli cheese fries and wondering exactly where I went wrong with my life. It's at times like this that I start to doubt I made the right decision; what if I was wrong to stay here, should I have gone back to New York? Stayed with Piz? Met his parents? Oh God, where am I going? What am I doing?

As these doubts are coursing through my mind my phone rings. I almost don't answer it; not many people call me at this time of night, and normally it's someone needing my help. I look at the screen and feel relief when I see Logan's face on the screen. "Hey you," I say before he can speak, "I miss you."

The call is short, as they all have been since he left 90 days ago. Only 90 more and he will be home and we can stop with this long distance experiment that resembles torture more than anything else. "I had some time and thought I would see how my best girl is doing. I miss you, Ronnie. Have you bought any new sexy underwear to show me when I get back?" I swear I never intended to become this weak semblance of a woman, desperate to see a man who, for so long, made my life hell, but I miss him, and I can't wait for him to come home, so I laugh a little and for a moment allow myself to be the woman who only wants to make her man happy.

"I thought that you preferred me with nothing on," I keep my voice low and husky so that only he can hear me, I don't want everyone hearing this very private conversation.

"But anticipation is everything. 90 more days, babe."

Yes, 90 more days of wishing for longer phone calls, nights where my body aches for his, desperate to feel his arms wrapped around me, hoping that I won't get a letter telling me that he's changed his mind, or he's not coming back. "I can't wait." I can feel the tears but I refuse to let them fall. The navy is an important part of his life, and I know that he wouldn't be the man he is now if it weren't for his dedication and loyalty to the service.

"I can't talk for long, just wanted to check in, hear your voice." Logan says, "I've been dreaming about you."

I smirk as I remember the dreams that I have been having of late. "Oh? Am I wearing anything in these dreams?"

"A little green number," he tells me, "Ronnie, I have to go…"

I don't want him to go, and more than anything want to tell him this, but I know he can't help it any more than I can help missing him. "Write…" I tell him, then, "Miss you." The phone goes dead before I can finish. My appetite gone I push the plate away, take a sip of my root beer float, drop a few notes onto the table and then leave. I need to go somewhere noisy where I can't think, the last thing I need to do right now is think!

The next morning I wake up with a sleep hangover; my head is pounding and my mouth is dry. I can smell bacon and fresh coffee from the kitchen and my stomach gurgles a little as I realise I haven't eaten a full meal in days. I get up and check my phone before I head through to the kitchen and sit down at the table where a cup of steaming coffee is already waiting. "Did you have fun last night? Everything go well?" I ask as Dad sits down, placing a plate of scrambled egg and crisp slices of bacon in front of me.

"I think you'd like her, she's very like you."

"And that's a good thing?" I asked him, around a mouthful of bacon.

"I happen to think that you're very special." That's his rote answer; that I am special, it's been the same for as long as I can remember.

With a smile I tell him, "Logan called last night."

"How is he?"

"Fine, I guess," I realise that I don't have much of a clue how he is; his letters don't give much away and our calls are filled with counting down the days until he's home, and how much we miss each other.

"Good…good." Dad had never really warmed to Logan and I think he still blamed him for my decision to stay in Neptune. Of course we never talked about any of this, not after the last idiscussion/I which had been rather heated, he felt that I was wasting my life and had thrown away the iperfect/I that he had always wanted for me. I don't think that he understood that this is what I want, that for me this is almost perfect.

Mac was already sitting behind her desk when I arrived at the office, she had a massive grin on her face and a massive bear claw in her hand. "That'll end up on your hips," I tell her as I pour myself a second cup of coffee.

"You're just jealous," she responds, taking a huge bite and grinning at me, "I'll work this off tonight…"

She's right, I am jealous; jealous because I have to wait another 3 months to work off the sort of calories I would earn stuffing my face with a carb-loaded breakfast pastry, but being a good friend I am also really happy that Mac is happy. "Yeah, yeah…of course. So, what exciting prospects do we have to look at today?" I sit on the corner of Mac's desk and look through the small pile of case folders stacked on top of our inbox; the usual suspects, a couple of bail-jumpers, some woman who wants to stick her ex for a few months' worth of child support and a teenage boy looking for his missing mother, the sort of stuff that had been bread and butter for Mars Investigations since the beginning.

Since Logan left I have been spending more than a few extra hours at my desk. I guess I am trying to keep busy, anything to distract myself from the reality that I am going home to watch crappy TV shows and bury my pathetic-ness in a massive bowl of rocky road ice cream.

I hope, more than anything on earth, that we start getting some more interesting cases. The files I am looking through at the moment are less than fascinating. Sure; the scumbag deadbeat dad took almost an hour to locate, and the missing mother is easily found, having used her credit cards in the next town; seems she just wanted a break from her dominating and abusive husband. I call the first woman; who sounds rather harried and incredibly relieved when I am able to tell her that I have found the man who owes her money but I am not sure that letting the teenage boy his mother's whereabouts is the right thing. Given her situation I think that she has the right to stay hidden, at least for a while.

"I'm headed out to get some lunch, want anything?" Mac pokes her head around my door and asks.

"I wouldn't mind a decent coffee, double-shot extra foam." I smile at her in thanks before returning my attention to a file on a particularly slippery bail jumper who had failed to appear at his last meeting with his parole officer.

"No probs. BRB." With another quick grin she is gone.

Another week is over and another 7 days have been crossed off the calendar, just 89 more days until Logan returns, but I am in no doubt they aren't going to pass quickly.

When I get home dad is already halfway out the door; he had an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and a little bit of a spring in his step. "Are you off for a bit of a dirty weekend Sheriff Mars?"

"I am not admitting to anything at all, but I am going away with Monica for a weekend of legal debauchery in Las Vegas." I can see that he is happy; for the first time a while he has a smile on his face, and I am determined that my self-imposed misery is not going to impact on this. Let's face it, I am the author of my own depression!

"Well just make sure you don't go near any drive-thru chapels." I press a kiss to his cheek. "Have a good time, dad. Don't do anything I wouldn't." Let's be honest now; if he followed that suggestion he wouldn't do anything at all, I am hardly the epitome of exciting.

I am settling in for the night with a bowl of ice cream, a glass of Merlot and reruns of iAmerica's Next Top Model/I; I am tired, feeling sorry for myself and overdosing on cream, sugar, marshmallow and chocolate – delicious.

I feel like I have lost a part of myself in becoming this person waiting for Logan to return from his tour and I know that I need to snap out of it because this really isn't me. After a weekend of ice cream and chick flick overdose I am ready to pick myself up and take steps to get a life.

Six months is a long time to be apart, especially when you are in the first/second flushes of love. Any relationship takes work, ours more than most given our history, so this separation is proving very difficult. Our phone calls our focussed entirely on how much we miss each other; no talk of what we are going to do when he is finally back on US soil but I guess that's what happens when you go from teenage lovers to nothing to adult lovers without any of the development in between; hopefully this will not be our downfall this time.

I feel sick with nerves as I drive into one of the parking spaces outside Dick's beach house; I haven't seen him around recently but he was the one who called me to help out at a 'Welcome Home' party he decided to arrange for Logan's return. I have brought the wine, as requested and by the time I walk through the door the man of the hour is already settled on one of the couches, a cigar in one hand and a glass of fizzy water in the other. Logan's drinking was always a problem, but it seems that he has finally managed to get it under control.

"Hey," I tell him as I sit down on the couch next to him, smiling as he immediately lifts his arm and wraps it around my shoulders, pulling me close.

"Hey back." He murmurs against my hair, brushing a kiss across the top of my head. "Was this insanity your idea?" He takes a sip of his water and then puts the glass down and stands up. "Let's go somewhere quieter."

I can tell from the glint in his eye that he isn't wanting to talk; but right now that's a moot point as Dick comes up behind Logan and wraps an arm casually around his shoulder. "Dude, hope you weren't thinking of going and getting freaky with your girl there. We've some catching up to do."

Smirking, Logan moved out of his friend's grip and grabbed my wrist, "come on, let's get out of here."

I have barely had a chance to eat any of the delectable foods that are on the side, and my stomach is gurgling at protest thanks to missing out on breakfast and lunch. As he pulls me towards the back door and his car I manage to grab a few of the crab puffs.

The minute we are in the front seat of my car we are all over each other. I can't get enough of him. I tug the buttons of his jacket open and pull his shirt out of his slacks. More than anything I just want to be somewhere dark and very private with him, but there isn't anywhere; he lives here at the beach house and I live with my dad.

With a quiet groan of frustration I pull back from our embrace and lean back in my seat, "I need to get a place of my own." I mutter, "I'm really too old to still be living with my dad."

"How about we get a place together?" Logan asks me, and I am not sure how well I hide my surprise at this.

"Together? As in together, together?" I hadn't thought that we would be moving quite so fast, but perhaps he has a point; neither of us have anywhere else and what better way to test our relationship than to get a place.

"Why not? Did you want to spend every night listening to Dick and one of his many little beach bunnies?"

"Okay," the idea has merit. I don't want to spend every night with dad and Monica sitting on the couch like a pair of lovebirds. "Let's do it."

For a few hours we drive around aimlessly, talking about little, reminiscing a lot. We finally come to a stop outside the tacky Camelot where rooms could still be hired by the hour and where they had shared their first misguided kiss. "Ronnie…" He pulls me across the gear stick and cup holders and into his lap, his lips pressed to mine so hard that I am afraid they are going to bruise. "I've missed you so much."

I wrap my arms around his neck and shift in his lap until I am comfortable and I can see that he no longer is. "Do you want to get a room?" I ask him as I kiss my way up his neck and nibble gently on his ear. My hormones are running a riot in my body and have been for months, I have never been as sexually frustrated as I have been since those two weeks six months ago, and now we were sitting in my car outside a tacky hotel where men tended to take prostitutes and cheap mistresses.

"Here? I think that I can spring for something a little bit more luxurious." He carefully places me back in the driver's seat and helps me with my seatbelt; ever the gentleman even while me is sporting a very impressive erection.

I am a little bit wistful as I pull out of the car park and head further away from the beach and back into town. The Neptune Grand is the perfect spot for our 6 month reunion and I have no doubt that every cent of the room cost will be completely worthwhile.

We make quick work of checking into a room, neither of us care what room, what price or anything else, we just want to be somewhere private, together, before I explode and I am sure that Logan feels exactly the same, if the way that he is now tugging at my dress is anything to go by. "Eager?" I ask, smiling, as I help him out by tugging off his jacket and dropping it to the chaise at the end of the sizeable double bed.

"Do you doubt it?" Logan responds, smirking in a way that I have always associated with him, tugging on my dress a little bit too roughly and ripping the material away from the zip. I have to be honest though; I don't really care!

As soon as my dress has been pushed down over my hips and has fallen into a puddle on the floor at my feet I wrap my arms around him again, wrapping my legs about his hips, my lips pressed to his. I can't get enough of him, even the faint taste of the tobacco from the cigar that he'd abandoned the moment I showed up at the beach house isn't enough to make me move away; he has given up enough vices over the last few years, I can't expect him to give up absolutely everything.

"As much as I love you in that uniform, Logan, you really need to make a bit more effort to get out of it and into that bed." I have managed to get the zipper on his trousers undone, but I know that I need to let him go so that he can take off the rest.

"Well give me a chance, Ronnie," he drops me gently onto the bed and then steps back, toeing off his shoes and dropping trou slowly and kicking them over into the corner of the room. I watch him, standing there in his white Calvin Klein's, a pair of black socks and a crisp white shirt undone to reveal the light smattering of dark blond hair on his chest.

"Much better," I tell him as he kneels on the edge of the bed, one hand curled around my waist, the other caressing my jaw.

"I have been dreaming about this for so long..." Logan mutters against my cheek. "I missed you so much," he punctuates each word with a light kiss to my skin.

As much as both of us want to take it slow we are desperate and the time apart punctuated with brief phone calls and even briefer letters. It's not exactly over in minutes, but the minute that he rolls onto his back, me straddling him, his body rubbing tantalisingly against mine I am lost. I take a deep breath and roll my hips against his for a few moments, and slowly roll a condom down his length before sliding down onto him and sucking in a deep breath as he thrusts upward beneath me. "Logan," I utter, his name fragmented as he arches upward, his hands curved around my hips setting a rhythm that could almost class as an aerobic workout.

Breathless after a rushed orgasm that was more exhausting than a spinning class I curled into Logan and, with his arms wrapped around me, I drifted off into sleep, the fresh scent of his aftershave in my nostrils.

When the shimmering pink rays of sunlight filtered through the half-open blinds at the window I woke from my sleep to find that at some point I had managed to burrow under Logan to steal almost all of his body heat, Logan's face was buried in my hair and his hands were unconsciously moulded around my breasts, gently kneading them. Realising that it's far too early, or maybe too late, to get up and go back to the real world, I snuggle back under the covers with a quiet sigh and sink back into sleep. I am exactly where I want to be and, no matter what happens tomorrow or the day after, this is where I belong.


End file.
